The House of Doors
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The House of Doors
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Narrated by:
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David Oakes
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Louise-Mai Newberry
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By:
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Tan Twan Eng
About this listen
Bloomsbury presents The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng, read by David Oakes and Louise-Mai Newberry.
LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL FICTION
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORKER, NPR, SLATE, THE FINANCIAL TIMES, AND A WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE WORK
A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' CHOICE
From the bestselling author of The Garden of Evening Mists, a spellbinding novel about love and betrayal, colonialism and revolution, storytelling and redemption.
The year is 1921. Lesley Hamlyn and her husband, Robert, a lawyer and war veteran, are living at Cassowary House on the Straits Settlement of Penang. When “Willie” Somerset Maugham, a famed writer and old friend of Robert’s, arrives for an extended visit with his secretary Gerald, the pair threatens a rift that could alter more lives than one.
Maugham, one of the great novelists of his day, is beleaguered: Having long hidden his homosexuality, his unhappy and expensive marriage of convenience becomes unbearable after he loses his savings—and the freedom to travel with Gerald. His career deflating, his health failing, Maugham arrives at Cassowary House in desperate need of a subject for his next book. Lesley, too, is enduring a marriage more duplicitous than it first appears. Maugham suspects an affair, and, learning of Lesley’s past connection to the Chinese revolutionary, Dr. Sun Yat Sen, decides to probe deeper. But as their friendship grows and Lesley confides in him about life in the Straits, Maugham discovers a far more surprising tale than he imagined, one that involves not only war and scandal but the trial of an Englishwoman charged with murder. It is, to Maugham, a story worthy of fiction.
A mesmerizingly beautiful novel based on real events, The House of Doors traces the fault lines of race, gender, sexuality, and power under empire, and dives deep into the complicated nature of love and friendship in its shadow.
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Emotive and complex.
- By Jeff Lacy on 11-21-18
By: Tan Twan Eng
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The Garden of Evening Mists
- By: Tan Twan Eng
- Narrated by: Anna Bentinck
- Length: 15 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 779
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 686
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 689
Malaya, 1951. Yun Ling Teoh, the scarred lone survivor of a brutal Japanese wartime camp, seeks solace among the jungle-fringed tea plantations of Cameron Highlands. There she discovers Yugiri, the only Japanese garden in Malaya, and its owner and creator, the enigmatic Aritomo, exiled former gardener of the emperor of Japan. Despite her hatred of the Japanese, Yun Ling seeks to engage Aritomo to create a garden in memory of her sister, who died in the camp.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The best
- By Susan Gardner Bowers on 03-11-13
By: Tan Twan Eng
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The End of Drum-Time
- A Novel
- By: Hanna Pylväinen
- Narrated by: Philippe Spall
- Length: 14 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 108
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 91
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 91
In 1851, at a remote village in the Scandinavian tundra, a Lutheran minister known as Mad Lasse tries in vain to convert the native Sámi reindeer herders to his faith. But when one of the most respected herders has a dramatic awakening and dedicates his life to the church, his impetuous son, Ivvár, is left to guard their diminishing herd alone. By chance, he meets Mad Lasse’s daughter Willa, and their blossoming infatuation grows into something that ultimately crosses borders.
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5 out of 5 stars
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One of the Best Stories ever written!
- By Anonymous User on 06-09-23
By: Hanna Pylväinen
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If I Survive You
- By: Jonathan Escoffery
- Narrated by: Torian Brackett
- Length: 8 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 148
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 133
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Story4 out of 5 stars 132
In the 1970s, Topper and Sanya flee to Miami as political violence consumes their native Kingston. But America, as the couple and their two children learn, is far from the promised land. Excluded from society as Black immigrants, the family pushes on first through Hurricane Andrew and later the 2008 recession, living in a house so cursed that the pet fish launches itself out of its own tank rather than stay. But even as things fall apart, the family remains motivated, often to its own detriment, by what their younger son, Trelawny, calls “the exquisite, racking compulsion to survive.”
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3 out of 5 stars
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Good except for the ending
- By Morris Nelms on 11-20-22
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When the Elephants Dance
- A Novel
- By: Tess Uriza Holthe
- Narrated by: Irene Adlaw
- Length: 17 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 7
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 7
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 7
The Karangalan family and their neighbors huddle for survival in the cellar of a house a few miles from Manila. Outside the safety of their little refuge the war rages on—fiery bombs torch the beautiful Filipino countryside, Japanese soldiers round up and interrogate innocent people, and from the hills guerillas wage a desperate campaign against the enemy. Inside the cellar, these men, women, and children put their hopes and dreams on hold as they wait out the war, only emerging to look for food, water, and medicine.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Performance by the Narrator was absolutely fabulous. She gave powerful life to the characters and story. Beautifully executed.
- By Colin Masashi Ehara on 01-30-25
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The Rain
- By: W. Somerset Maugham
- Narrated by: Asif Ali Beg
- Length: 1 hr and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall0 out of 5 stars 0
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Performance0 out of 5 stars 0
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Story0 out of 5 stars 0
'The Rain' Collection of short stories centres on the destructive and regenerative force of rain—physically, emotionally, psychologically and as a metaphor for life. From human cruelty to human determination, stories set in several locations, each showcasing the universality of anger, loss, fear, sadness, joy, hopes and dreams.
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A Spell of Good Things
- A Novel
- By: Ayobami Adebayo
- Narrated by: Babajide Oyekunle, Ore Apampa
- Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 58
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 56
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 56
Eniola is tall for his age, a boy who looks like a man. Because his father has lost his job, Eniola spends his days running errands for the local tailor, collecting newspapers, begging when he must, dreaming of a big future. Wuraola is a golden girl, the perfect child of a wealthy family. Now an exhausted young doctor in her first year of practice, she is beloved by Kunle, the volatile son of an ascendant politician.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Horrible ending
- By Trish on 09-12-23
By: Ayobami Adebayo
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Marvelous
- A Novel
- By: Molly Greeley
- Narrated by: Ell Potter
- Length: 15 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 28
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 25
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 25
1547: Pedro Gonsalvus, a young boy living on the island of Tenerife, understands that he is different from the other children in his village. He is mercilessly ridiculed for the shiny layer of hair covering his body from head to toe. When he is kidnapped off the beach near his home, he finds himself delivered by a slave broker into the dangerous and glamorous world of France’s royal court. There “Monsieur Sauvage,” as he is known, learns French, literature, and sword fighting, becoming an attendant to the French King Henri II and a particular favorite of his queen.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Writing a little flowery for my taste
- By Susan on 06-30-24
By: Molly Greeley
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Kantika
- By: Elizabeth Graver
- Narrated by: Gail Shalan
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 99
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 88
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 88
Exploring identity, place, and exile, Kantika also reveals how the female body—in work, art, and love—serves as a site of both suffering and joy. A haunting, inspiring meditation on the tenacity of women, this lush, lyrical novel from Elizabeth Graver celebrates the insistence on seizing beauty and grabbing hold of one’s one and only life.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Outstanding performance of a beautiful book
- By Elliott Wolfe, M.D. on 07-25-23
By: Elizabeth Graver
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This Other Eden
- By: Paul Harding
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 6 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 135
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 110
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Story4 out of 5 stars 111
In 1792, formerly enslaved Benjamin Honey and his Irish wife, Patience, discover an island where they can make a life together. Over a century later, the Honeys’ descendants and a diverse group of neighbors are desperately poor, isolated, and often hungry, but nevertheless protected from the hostility awaiting them on the mainland.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Painfully overwritten
- By WPH on 02-24-23
By: Paul Harding
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All the Little Bird-Hearts
- A Novel
- By: Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow
- Narrated by: Rose Akroyd
- Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 23
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 22
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Story4 out of 5 stars 22
Sunday Forrester lives with her sixteen-year-old daughter, Dolly, in the house she grew up in. She does things more carefully than most people. On quiet days, she must eat only white foods. Her etiquette handbook guides her through confusing social situations, and to escape, she turns to her treasury of Sicilian folklore. The one thing very much out of her control is clever headstrong Dolly, now on the cusp of leaving home. Into this carefully ordered world step Vita and Rollo, a couple who move in next door.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A really enjoyable listen
- By Maria Little on 03-21-24
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One Hundred Saturdays
- Stella Levi and the Search for a Lost World
- By: Michael Frank
- Narrated by: Michael Frank
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 129
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 117
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Story5 out of 5 stars 116
With nearly a century of life behind her, Stella Levi had never before spoken in detail about her past. Then she met Michael Frank. He came to her Greenwich Village apartment one Saturday afternoon to ask her a question about the Juderia, the neighborhood in Rhodes where she’d grown up in a Jewish community that had thrived there for half a millennium. Probing and courageous, candid and sly, Stella is a modern-day Scheherazade whose stories reveal what it was like to grow up in an extraordinary place in an extraordinary time—and to construct a life after that place has vanished.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent book
- By Daphne on 09-14-22
By: Michael Frank
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Pearl
- By: Siân Hughes
- Narrated by: Laura Brydon
- Length: 6 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 58
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 54
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 54
Marianne is eight years old when her mother goes missing. Left behind with her baby brother and grieving father in a ramshackle house on the edge of a small village, she clings to the fragmented memories of her mother’s love; the smell of fresh herbs, the games they played, and the songs and stories of her childhood. As time passes, Marianne struggles to adjust, fixated on her mother’s disappearance and the secrets she’s sure her father is keeping from her.
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5 out of 5 stars
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a meditation of memory, grief, and motherhood.
- By Barbara S on 10-08-23
By: Siân Hughes
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Clear
- A Novel
- By: Carys Davies
- Narrated by: Russ Bain
- Length: 3 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 142
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 127
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 127
John, an impoverished Scottish minister, has accepted a job evicting the lone remaining occupant of an island north of Scotland—Ivar, who has been living alone for decades, with only the animals and the sea for company. Though his wife, Mary, has serious misgivings about the errand, he decides to go anyway, setting in motion a chain of events that neither he nor Mary could have predicted.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Yes, Another Island Book
- By Kate Juliff on 11-10-24
By: Carys Davies
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Held
- A Novel
- By: Anne Michaels
- Narrated by: Anne Michaels
- Length: 4 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 50
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 46
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Story4 out of 5 stars 46
1917. On a battlefield near the River Escaut, John lies in the aftermath of a blast, unable to move or feel his legs. Struggling to focus his thoughts, he is lost to memory as the snow falls—a chance encounter in a pub by a railway, a hot bath with his lover on a winter night. 1920. John has returned from war to North Yorkshire, near a different river. He is alive but still not whole. Reunited with Helena, an artist, he reopens his photography business and tries to keep on living. But the past erupts insistently into the present, as ghosts begin to surface in his pictures
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5 out of 5 stars
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Would give six stars if possible
- By love it on 08-31-24
By: Anne Michaels
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Old God's Time
- By: Sebastian Barry
- Narrated by: Stephen Hogan
- Length: 8 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 218
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 181
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Story4 out of 5 stars 182
Retired policeman Tom Kettle is enjoying the quiet of his new home, a lean-to annexed to a white Victorian Castle in Dalkey overlooking the sea. For months he has barely seen a soul, but his peace is interrupted when two former colleagues turn up at his door to ask questions about a decades-old case. A traumatic case which Tom never quite came to terms with. His peace is further disturbed by a young mother and family who move in next door, a woman on the run from her own troubles. And what of Tom’s family, his wife June, and their two children?
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3 out of 5 stars
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Boring and self conscious
- By Leah on 06-25-23
By: Sebastian Barry
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Properties of Thirst
- By: Marianne Wiggins
- Narrated by: Stephen Graybill, Gabra Zackman
- Length: 19 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 198
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 169
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 168
Rockwell “Rocky” Rhodes has spent years fiercely protecting his California ranch from the LA Water Corporation. It is here where he and his beloved wife Lou raised their twins, Sunny and Stryker, and it is here where Rocky has mourned Lou in the years since her death. As Sunny and Stryker reach the cusp of adulthood, the country teeters on the brink of war. Stryker decides to join the fight, deploying to Pearl Harbor not long before the bombs strike. Soon, Rocky and his family find themselves facing yet another incomprehensible tragedy.
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5 out of 5 stars
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LOVED it!
- By Susan Flieder on 12-31-22
By: Marianne Wiggins
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A Mercy
- By: Toni Morrison
- Narrated by: Toni Morrison
- Length: 6 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 496
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 294
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 293
Jacob is an Anglo-Dutch trader and adventurer, with a small holding in the harsh north. Despite his distaste for dealing in "flesh," he takes a small slave girl in part payment for a bad debt from a plantation owner in Catholic Maryland. This is Florens, "with the hands of a slave and the feet of a Portuguese lady." Florens looks for love, first from Lina, an older servant woman at her new master's house, but later from a handsome blacksmith, an African, never enslaved.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great book
- By Pablo Tebas on 01-18-09
By: Toni Morrison
Beautiful reading of an author who carefully uses language to paint the story
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Descriptive
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What a wonderful book!
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lovely for a maugham fan
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complex, historical lyrics accurate, poignant
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It all comes together beautifully. The narrators are excellent.
I also downloaded L'Heure exquise, which I'd never heard before. Wonderful. Thank you.
Layers upon layers
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This book really drew me in, so many good things about it. The setting was exotic, the images of art beautiful and the story amazing. If you are a fan of w.some rest Maugham You will truly enjoy this.
A Beautiful Story
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Elegant and provocative
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Descriptions of places. Especially the doors in the house of doors and the connection with Stegner’s ideogram from his father
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Superbly crafted novel
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